


Love Letters

by Bodhicitta



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post TFP, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Post-The Final Problem
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2018-10-26 06:52:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10781778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bodhicitta/pseuds/Bodhicitta
Summary: This will be edited again later today - I fell asleep last night while making changes, and the computer ate them!  But I was eager to share!





	1. A Distressing Overabundance of Oxytocin

_Recently, I have determined that my liver is improperly metabolizing more than the usual quantities of C 43H66N12O12S2, a powerful - some would say dangerous - neuropeptide.  This seems to occur when you have recently passed through a room, or when the the aroma of your discount shampoo - or components of that fragrance - catches me unawares in the metro._

_Or when I see a plant with the same color as some of the highlights in your hair._

_Or when I see a dog with the same color eyes you have._

_Or when I happen upon a corpse floating in the Thames and wonder what you would say concerning the cause of death._

_Or when a female of short stature passes by me in the grocery store._

_Or when the barista asks me_ "what do you need?" _instead of the usual_ "what will you have?"

_...or when your name is mentioned._

_Or part of your name.  The hydrolysis of the carrier protein seems to increase quite rapidly when that happens._

_My blood levels of this molecule have become distressingly high - my hypothalamus seems to be sent into overdrive when your footsteps become audible on the landing of your apartment (I'm not stalking you, just monitoring)....and my kidneys are not excreting the by-products fast enough to cleanse my blood stream of the hormone; it seems to be collecting in the interstitial cells of my testes._

 

Molly set the piece of paper with its chicken scrawl down on her kitchen counter and dialed the Detective's number.  After three rings (instead of the usual ten), he picked up.

"Thank you, Sherlock."

Over the sounds of construction workers repairing the roof of 221 Baker Street, Sherlock yelled, "Why are you thanking me?"

"For the note."

"Oh. "  He moved to a quieter location.  "So then, I can come to your apartment tonight?"

"Well, sure."

"Do you have any condoms?"

"Excuse me?"

"Didn't you read the note?"

"Well...yes."

"I thought I made it perfectly clear."

"Made what clear?"

"I want to have penetrative sexual intercourse with you. As soon as possible."

Molly felt herself get a bit dizzy.  "Okay."

"Good."

"No, I mean, not okay!"

"No?  You just said..."

"I mean it's not okay - it's not okay for you to just say that to me over the phone and then expect me to...." When she was greeted with his confused silence, she added, "It's a bit not good, Sherlock."

He sighed.  "Oh.  I'm...disappointed."

"But you can come over tonight."

The phone clicked.  Molly jumped in the shower, yelped at bit at the frigid water, fumbled about for her cheapest shampoo, and quickly lathered up her tresses.  Quickly, quickly, and then she rinsed.  But not too well.

Five minutes later, there was an abrupt rapping on the door; as Molly toweled off her hair, she heard the lock in her door release and the door swung open.

She sighed.  It was going to be an interesting night, to be sure.

 


	2. Short and Sweet

_The security system will be installed tonight._

_Do not neglect to reset the security code immediately._

_Scratch that. I'll do it myself. - SH_

Mary held the phone with its text message up for Molly to see.

Molly blushed. "It doesn't mean anything. He is just very...concerned."

The Mary apparition grinned her sly sideways grin.  The spectre set the phone on the dining table on top of a magazine that had not been there before and evaporated through the front door.

Molly, still getting used to these appearances, hesitatingly walked to the table. The magazine was left open to a particular page.  A tight-fitting wedding dress. Short. A sheath. Very Twiggy.

"I want a ball gown," Molly yelled to the empty room.


	3. A Cursory Exploration of Myriad Names

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This will be edited again later today - I fell asleep last night while making changes, and the computer ate them! But I was eager to share!

Another note.  Scrawled on brown paper, torn from a grocery bag.  Scrawled in black marker.

A list.  

Women's names.  Women with sultry names.

Names like _Irene_. (but crossed off)

 _Samantha_ (that one crossed off, too)

 _Charlotte_ (scribbled out)

 _Delilah_ (line through it as well)

 _Veroni_ (didn't even finish writing that one)

Molly bit her lip.  Her hand started to shake.

Probably a list of women he's....oh, she might as well say it, or think it, rather.  

Women he's slept with.  Women he's...she gulped down the emotion.  Women he's held in those perfect arms, women he's pressed underneath him, entered.

Fucked.

Toiled over.  Ploughed. 

Came inside.  She imagined that moment, and for some reason she knew he would have a crooked, nay, smug, triumphal smile on those lips, sweat dripping from his face.

Unaccountably, her hand moved to her belly.  She felt ill.  She moved to the kitchen as if in a trance to make tea.  A box of peppermint tea was already out on the counter, so she made do with that.  It soothed her tummy.

Later, she found the list on the floor.  It had slipped from her hand.  She hadn't noticed.

Why is this list even in my house?  When did he come here?  Was it while I was at work? Part of her knew that he might be watching her sleeping again. 

"It calms me."

That was out loud.  He's in the house.  In my study.  Then she heard the typing.

She didn't want to even hold the list, much lest look at it, read it, but her studious nature and scientist's mind could not abide an incomplete task or a lack of thoroughness.  Her eye scanned downwards further.

_Paul_

_Reginald_

_Nicholas_

And men, too.  Of course.  Just look at him, with those curls and that porcelain skin and those plush, obscene lips and that penetrating gaze.  I'm sure men, women, and gender-nonconfoming people - all of them - were constantly throwing themselves at his beauty. I'm quite sure he's had his pick of the most delectable....

And then names became a bit more...noteworthy.

_Hal_

_Asimov_

_Aristotle_

_Descartes_

_the guy who invented Calculus_

_Cassini_

Cassini??  They had just the other day been discussing astronomy and why Sherlock should care about the movements of the celestial bodies and the space race which he knew nothing about and our unmanned probes to the outer planets and how Cassini was on its last triumphal swan dive into and through Saturn's rings.

So, Cassini....maybe this wasn't a list of people he's....banged.

_Toby_

Toby?!?

She wended her way to her study to find The Detective typing furiously on her laptop.  He threw his hands up and exclaimed, "I'm in!"  And then he sat back in the chair, propped his feet up on her desk and tore into a bowl of popcorn.

She was about to scold him about his feet on her desk, when he made a waving gesture, sort of flipped his hand upside down, and then he did it again, impatiently.  Oh.  He wants me to flip the paper over.  

She complied.

There were more names.  On the back.

_Molly Anne Holmes_

_Molly Charlotte Holmes_

_Charlotte Margaret Holmes_

_Margaret Mary_ _Mary Margaret_

_Martha Holmes_

_Margaret Jean Holmes_

_John Holmes - can John be a girl's name_

_John    Jean   Joan   Jean  Gene (Gene Tierney)_

_Jean Holmes_

_Jeannette Holmes_

_Molly Jeannette_

_Mary Jeannette Holmes_

_Mary Jeannette Holmes - YES!!!!!_

Molly folded the paper into quarters and pressed it against her chest.  She felt a fluttering in her belly.  Still a bit sick, but less so this time.  More anxious than anything.  Something that could almost be called hope.

Choking back a little sob.  "Sherlock?  Is this...?"

"Yes. It's a list of names for humans not yet born."

"But...I'm not...I'm on..."

He raised one eyebrow.  "Really, Molly. You should know by now who I am, what I'm capable of."

He leaned forward and jabbed on the keyboard, keeping his eye on his computer screen.  When the printer expelled its offering, he grabbed the paper and thrust it just a bit imperiously in Molly's general direction.

"Please peruse this and offer opinions," he commanded, not taking his eyes from the live stream of the CCTV of the software engineers' break room at Quantico.

She compliantly took the print-out in hand, still pressing the folded-up list of names against her sternum.  The new text read:

  * Bed for Small Humans
  * those thingies with wheels you push the baby in until it develops sufficient muscle mass and gross motor coordination to walk on its own
  * bottles
  * clothing
  * edutainment - books, mobiles, toys
  * Hygiene Products for the excrement of the small human



Molly broke into peals of laughter.

"Sherlock!! They're called nappies!"

 


	4. An Accurate Accounting of Appalling Decor

Molly woke up to a sunny day.  The light streamed through her tulle curtains, but what was that?  A square shadow blocking a bit of the light.  She swung her legs out of bed, stood up.  Stretched.  Yawned.  Yawned and stretched.  Stumbled over to her window.  The shadow was not a shadow. it was real.  It was...paper.  A note attached to the gauzy fabric curtain.

_This has to go._

She recognized the handwriting immediately.  Not that there was any doubt as to who would be pinning notes to her curtain with...a steak knife!!!

Okay.  Whatever, she thought to herself, shrugging her shoulders.

She stumbled into the kitchen to make some coffee.  There was a post-it note on the refrigerator.

 _We can do better than this._ She rolled her eyes.  

After enjoying her coffee, she went to the bathroom.  Sometimes she did that - had coffee even before her first morning wee.  After relieving herself, washing her hands, she turned to dry her hands on her favorite pink towel.

_This color interferes with my thought process._

She shook her head and jumped into the shower - as expected, a note was affixed to the flowery shower curtain with its huge, hand-sewn cotton blossoms - it had cost a small fortune as far as shower curtains go.  But she figured she could afford a few small luxuries for herself, so as to make home life a little more pleasant.  Considering her work and all.

_No.  Just no._

She showered quickly, toweled off, dressed, and made a beeline for the door.  Not late, not late yet.  Turning the corner into the living room she saw it.

There were post-it notes....everywhere.

On the green couch.

On the frilly lampshade.

On every lampshade.

On the end table on the rug on the wall on the other wall on every wall.

She sighed. Pursed her lips.  Gathered up all the notes and placed them in a wooden box.

Later at Bart's, she had to find any available microscope because the one she preferred was in use by London's Most Famous (and Only) Consulting Detective.  He barely registered her presence with a raised eyebrow as he searched for the stray hair that would prove the editor had poisoned his publisher.  As she walked past him, she leaned ever so slightly towards him and simply said, "Yes, Sherlock, I'd like it if we moved in together."

He stopped what he was doing, then robot-like, swiveled in his chair to face her.  

"I know.  Why do you think we need to redecorate?"

At first she thought to be annoyed, but then she realized he had said "we."  Should she be happy?  Should she smile?  She hardly knew any more.

"Okay," she said hesitatingly.  He turned back to look through the microscope.

As she was about to leave the lab, he stopped her.  "Molly?"

"Hm?"

"Come closer."

"Okay."  She walked back towards him.

"Closer."  She took two three more measured steps, almost into his personal space.

"Let me..."  He leaned in as if to wipe something off her face.  He smelled like aftershave and whiskey and cigarettes and bubble gum.

And then he kissed her.  So tenderly.  Right beside her lip.  He murmured something even she could not hear, perhaps in another language, something like "Cherie." 

Molly gulped.

"Who, me?"

"Yes," her whispered against her neck, barely audibly.  "You."

 


	5. A Partial List of Suggestions for the Amelioration of Your Behavior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A song fic (faintest whiff of an homage to "Oklahoma")
> 
> (with apologies - I made significant edits after publication - it's what I do.)

"Molly?"

"Yes, Sherlock?"

"My mother forced me to listen to the soundtrack of a musical under pain of disinheritance.  The only redeeming moment was a song in which one lover informs the person with whom they want to have sex about all of their annoying behavior.  It inspired me to write this list for your consideration."

He handed her the piece of paper, torn from a notebook.  Molly sighed.  She had grown used to his notes.  Scribbled on cereal boxes.  Scrawled on the wallpaper.

Texted, messaged, emailed, typed....

Painted in nail polish on her bedsheets. So she supposed, a simple, normal note written on a scrap of lined notebook paper was a huge improvement.

She cleared her throat, and settled back against the bed pillows for another list of how to make the coffee (" _quietly"_ ), when to set the alarm (" _never"_ ), how to strafe a street with bullets to scare off intruders but not harm the innocent (her insistence, yes there are innocents in the streets...).

How to avoid alerting Lestrade to his illegal weapons cache.

So she was surprised to find instead something rather more...intimate.

 _D_ o _n't look at me with those big brown eyes._

_Don't go on dates._

"But I don't, Sherlock.  I don't go on dates.  Anymore.  Because, well,...." she waved her hands at herself and then in his general direction, pointing out her state of undress and his state of tumescence.

"Keep reading, Miss Hooper."

_Don't have boyfriends.  They will only cause you pain. Save yourself the time and energy._

Molly frowned, peering over the paper at the sullen man-child sprawled out on her too small bed.  "But what about you?"

Sherlock regarded her incredulously.  "I am not Your Boyfriend."  He waved his hand to encourage her to keep reading.

_Don't wear your provocative dresses.  Especially in front of DI Lestrade.  In fact, just take those out of our closet and give them to me.  I'll dispose of them._

"What dresses?"

"You know what dresses."

"No, I don't know 'what dresses,'" she insisted, borrowing his turn of phrase.

"That black one."

"Sherlock!  I haven't worn that in years!"

"And that one with the flowers."

"You mean the one I wore to Rosie's christening?!?!"

"Yea."

"Those are not my provocative dresses.  Those are my dresses.  My only dresses."

Sherlock sniffed.

A realization dawned on Molly's face.  "You've disposed of them, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"I decline to answer."

_Don't date someone who looks just like me._

_Don't decline when I invite you to solve crimes with me and then ask you to accompany me for chips afterwards._

_Don't lose weight._

_Stop wearing lipstick._

"Sherlock!" Molly protested.  "This is getting a bit controlling!"

"Read."

_Look at me and only me when I am in the room._

"Sherlock!"

_Focus on your work.  I have quite a few projects you need to help me with._

_Don't look at me with those eyes when I'm working._

_Be present when I show up to the morgue._

_Don't let my sister know what you are doing and when you are doing it._

"How is that my fault!  Even you didn't know you HAD a sister!"

_Be more attentive.  Notice when cameras are installed in your house._

_Move your face when I aim for your cheek._

_Let me put my lips on your lips._

_Read my mind like I can read yours._

_Don't look deeply into my soul.  I don't have one.  When you look into my soul you look into the abyss._

_Don't be so trusting.  Look where it has gotten you.  Moriarty, and now me._

_Don't be so sensitive when I mention Moriarty._

_Don't cry when I do bad things._

_Don't walk home so late at night.  There are times when I have to maintain constant surveillance of a criminal, and I can't follow you home every night._

_Don't get mad when I follow you home every night._

Molly looked up from the list, rolled over to The Detective in her bed, leaned into his face and pressed her lips firmly, insistently on his.

"Why are you kissing me?"

"Don't scare away all my other friends who happen to be possessed of a y chromosome."

"Well, I have to.  They are all unworthy.  There should only be me."

"Don't show up at my work unannounced."

"I can't stop to text when I am fending off rogue CIA agents."

"Don't pierce my soul with your eyes of blue and green and grey and gold."

"There is nothing I can do about my eye color.  Rather unkind of you to suggest otherwise.  Oh...was that a compliment?"

 "No..." Molly said, so seriously.  "But this is."  

She climbed into his lap, straddled his legs, rocked her pelvis into his, and snogged him until his heart was bounding up out of his chest.

"I rather like that," he admitted.

Molly nodded her head in agreement, pushed the curls from his eyes.  "I know."

 


	6. An Exhaustive Inventory of Her Ineffable Qualities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Sherlock" first aired on July 25, 2010

He made lists.  Mycroft taught him to do that.  

When you take a poison or drug.

Or eat something unfamiliar.  

Or can't dispel a feeling of disquiet.

When something rankles you, enters you.  Takes you unawares.

Lying in a puddle of his own sick.  Mycroft leaned over him, and oh, so gently asked, "What did you take?"

"I don't remember."

"Next time, make a list, Brother Mine."

Or, when you wake up screaming.

"What was the dream about?" his brother asked while stirring sugar into his tea.

"I...don't know."

"When you remember," Mycroft murmured, "write it down."

Maybe that would help with this feeling, this disquietude.  Maybe writing it down would help him explore why he kept returning to this morgue, this place of death, when there were other, far more useful places to conduct investigations.

He wandered through the streets, letting London soak into him, trying not to notice that his footfalls were taking him closer, ever closer, to the same place, where she worked.  And here he was again, dammit, walking down the same street.

There were, after all, other mortuaries.

He forced himself to hail a cab and demanded it take him home.  As the driver wended his way through Monrovia and Marlebone, the detective whipped out his notepad and began scribbling.

First, the date.

_July 24, 2010_

Looking out the window as several alcoholics, one drug addict, a serial adulterer, and no less than four North Korean covert agents passed by, he began his inventory.  

 

_The Inventory of Her ("The Cause of My Disquietude")_

_She is lovely._

_...and kind._

_She is so kind._

_She is the kindest._

_She is strong._

_She is brave._

_She loves me.  She just doesn't know it yet._

_She is loyal._

_She is gorgeous.  Those eyes._

_She is fierce._

_She is unflappable._

_She is judicious._

_She is trustworthy._

_She could be my friend._

_She could be my everything._

_She makes me proud to be a human being._

_I admire her._

_I trust her._

 

Sherlock kept scribbling, handing the cabbie too much money, stumbling into his new flat, tripping over boxes.  He fell into the sofa chair and continued his list.  Hours passed.

A knocking at the door alerted him to Mycroft's presence.  Shabby that - usually he could detect him from his footfalls on the stairs.

His brother entered cautiously, careful not to let his coat hem touch the dusty, shabby furnishings.  He stepped over a puddle of what he did not care to know.  "I need to know why you haven't come out of your apartment in three days."

Sherlock finished a sentence ( _She reminds me to be Good...or at least, to try_ ), stabbed a period onto the page, and then glared up at him. "Who told you that?  Agent Smith or Agent Nelson?"

"Agent Hudson."  Mycroft circled his brother's chair gingerly as if walking too fast would cause the dust to cling to him.  "So, where is it?"

"Hm?"

"You know to what I refer.  Hand it to me."

"Don't think so."

"The list, Sherlock."

"No.  Not this time."

Mycoft paused before a shadow box with a desiccated bat corpse. "Oh, how sweet - you saved my birthday present."

Sherlock cracked a sideways smirk.  "Yes.  I did."  

His brother turned suddenly.  "May I have it back?  It was my 16th birthday, after all." 

Sherlock shook his head "no," at the same moment Mycroft said, "No, I don't suppose so."

Mycroft tapped his umbrella against the floorboards impatiently, and then realizing he was getting nowhere made to leave.  Just as his hand touched the doorknob, he asked, "Is it a man?"

"No."

"Is it a woman?"

"Not my...area."

"Is it human?"

"Very much so."

"Oh.  A woman then."

Sherlock pursed his lips and turned his head away, regarding the boxes of books that had yet to be unpacked, sorted and stowed away on their shelves.

Mycroft sighed.  "Well, then, I hope you know what you're doing.  For the sake of all of us, and England."

"I'm the only one who does know what he's doing."

Myrcroft harrumphed.  "Just do one thing for me.  Guard your heart."

"Of course, Mikey.  That's all I ever do," the younger Holmes spat out with derision.

 After the door closed and the air had settled back down, the Detective folded up the paper and tucked it into page 246 of his favorite book.  Somehow, keeping this list made him feel closer to her.  The Ineffable One.  So easy to read.  Too easy.

He stood up.  Placed the book on the shelf.  It was alone there, so he set about unpacking the rest of the books.  Halfway through the task he got distracted.  A text from DI Lestrade.  Something about a corpse that had signs of having been beaten.  

 

 

 


	7. A Most Unusual Apology

"I apologize."

There was an audible gasp from various parts of the room.  Sherlock looked down at the paper in his hands, and continued his report.

"I apologize because I didn't protect you from my sister."

Molly shook her head.  "No, Sherlock, don't...don't apologize, you couldn't have known, you _didn't_ know."

He interrupted her, "I apologize that I didn't admit to you, to myself, to anyone, that I had fallen in love with you." 

Molly closed her eyes from embarrassment.

"I apologize for not proclaiming to the world that you are the sweetest, tenderest, most lovely person I know, and even that is an understatement."

Molly's eyes began to well up.  

"I apologize because I couldn't even come up with those words myself; I am paraphrasing F. Scott Fitzgerald.  I apologize that you have fallen in love with a man who has no way to express love and certainly not in the way you deserve.  And I apologize for making you cry.  Not just now, but so many other times before today...too many times.  I would take it all back if I could, but actually, I wouldn't, because if even one iota of our mutual past had been different, the laws of quantum mechanics insist that this much to be desired outcome would not have occurred, and that is a potentiality that is unacceptable to me..."

"Its okay, it's fine...I..."  Molly had reverted to stammering.  She bit her lips and blushed a hot pink.

"What I apologize for most is that I didn't protect you from me.  Because you deserve so much more than me. And try as I might, I could not push you away, I tried, I really tried, but your love is true, true blue, and you were indefatigable, and if ever I thought your love for me had wavered, I was proven wrong by how it came blazing back.  I have the sore jaw to prove it. "

She chuckled at the memory.  She hadn't thought the Slap Heard Around London was a love tap, but Sherlock apparently did.

"And Molly, I want you to know even in my drug-induced crazes and stupors, I could feel how much I was hurting you, and it burned me, burned my soul....I..." he trailed off, his eyes cast down, he was unable to continue.

Molly ripped the paper out of his hands, his large, elegant hands, and crumpled the paper into a tight ball.  "Shh, shh," she comforted him, "no more."

John, utterly flabbergasted, suddenly came back to himself, looked up over Sherlock's and Molly's heads (he was standing on a wood box), and proclaimed to the good people gathered round, "Well, that was weird."

The guests laughed.

"By the power invested in me by no one in particular," John continued, "I now pronounce you husband and wife.  You may now kiss the...oh, beat me to it."


	8. A Most Baffling Display of Pique

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, you crazy Sherlollipops!
> 
> Sorry it took me so long to continue. I...am struggling with motivation. It’s all in my head. Hard to get it out sometimes. Comments give me life!!
> 
> As usual....this will be edited....

_Or when you wear your hair in a ponytail._

_Or when you wear your hair in a bun and pin it up like a crown._

_Or when you stand naked in front of your mirror and give yourself a mammary gland exam which you are not doing the correct way, and I want to help with that_

_Or when you take notes for me when I am investigating._

_Or when you almost get blown to pieces._

_All of this floods my bloodstream with an unseemly mix of cortisol and adrenaline and testosterone and epinephrine and precursors to oxytocin all mixed together in a way that can't be overridden by logic._

_I've tried meditation._

_I've tried...other things.  Chemicals of which you would not approve.  Nothing illegal._

Molly lifted her head up from the tablet screen, lifted her torso part way off the couch and looked over to Sherlock, who was wrestling the Christmas lights into submission.

 "What do you mean I almost get blown to pieces?"

There was a silence. And then he answered.  

“We have to talk."

Molly threw the tablet down onto the couch, pulled on her coat, and stormed out of the apartment.  Without hesitation, he turned to his Christmas present (an artificial intelligence named Marie who could control the thermostat, remind him to feed Toby, and alert him to Molly’s ovulation cycle....)

”Call John.”

”It is 3 o’clock in the morning. Do you still want me to call the hu-mahn named John?”

“Yes, yes!  Why wouldn’t I want you to call John?

“It is customary to wait until the sun has risen to call other humahns. Calling the hu-mahn named John at this early hour could contribute to a further distancing between yourself and the hu-mahn you refer to as your best friend.”

”Call John.”

”I have been programmed by My Pathologist Molly to inform you that calling other hu-mahns at 3 o’clock in the morning could result in a black eye.”

Since opening his present, Sherlock had not bothered to adjust the names he had assigned to the various characters in his life.  When prompted, he had given what he thought were appropriate names -“My Pathologist Molly,” - not realizing how awkward it would sound if “Marie” referred to his roommate that way - every single time.

 

 

 


End file.
